Chapter Eight #2
“Just… don’t let Talon get in your head today.”
I look at him over the rim of my cup. “Bit hard when he clearly hates me.”
“He doesn’t.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “Aw, bro. That fake confidence is adorable.”
Sayshen pushes off the bike and shakes his head. “It’s not fake. He’s pissed, yeah. Confused too. He’s chewing through a whole load of old shit he never had to deal with before you showed up.”
“Comforting.”
“I’m not done,” he says, pointing at me with two fingers. “You being around is good for him. Shit, for all of us, honestly.”
I blink at him. “Okay, now we’re crossing into delusion.”He laughs, swings his helmet on, and jerks his chin toward the road. “Come on. One thing Andre hates more than stupidity is us being late.”
I knock back the last of my coffee, already knowing I’m going to need every drop of caffeine if I want to survive this day, then toss the empty cup in the trash before pulling my helmet over my head and climbing onto my bike.
The ride to the garage wakes me up better than the coffee did.
Tampa in the morning is all glare, humidity, and traffic that already looks like it wants to fistfight somebody before nine a.m. I follow Sayshen through streets that get grungier the farther we go, past chain-link fences, squat industrial buildings, and lots full of shipping crates, busted pavement, and exactly zero charm.
By the time the Speed Demons garage comes into view, I’ve stopped feeling nervous in the shaky way and started feeling it in the locked-in way.
Sayshen pulls into the lot first, and I follow him in, parking a few spots over. I kill the engine, swing off the bike, and pull off my helmet, and the second I do, the heat hits.
So does everything else—oil, gas, rubber, metal, and that engine smell that I have grown to love so much.
Sayshen is already off his bike too, helmet in one hand, glancing over at me with a raised brow, like he’s making sure I’m not about to do something dramatic.
Rude.
From the open bay doors, I can already hear the place going. Tools clanking around. Voices carrying. Somebody laughing at something from deeper inside. Music low somewhere in the background.
I tuck my helmet against my hip and look toward the garage.
It hits me right in the chest.
Not because I’m nervous as fuck, but because it feels familiar in a way I honestly wasn’t ready for.
Places like this make sense to me with it’s familiar noises and scents. Sayshen glances over. “You all right?”
“Yeah.”
The garage is bigger than it looked from the road.
Wide concrete floor. Toolboxes lined up like soldiers.
Bikes on stands, under covers, stripped bare, gleaming, half-open, all at different stages of life or ruin.
Sponsor banners on one wall. Spare tires stacked in the back.
A break area that looks like it’s been held together by protein bars and a lifetime supply of energy drinks.
Talon’s already there, over by Bay Two, bent over a bike in a black tee with his shoulders locked up so tight I can see it from here. He looks up the second he hears us, and there it is, that look.
I was prepared for more yelling. But honestly, I think this version might be worse. He’s all shut down and controlled, like he’s decided the only way to deal with me is to give me absolutely nothing.
Which, annoyingly, still manages to sting.
Sayshen doesn’t break stride. “Morning.”
Talon’s gaze flicks to him. “You actually fucking brought her.”
Well, that’s not exactly encouraging.
“Told you I would.”
Talon looks back at me, expression flat and cold in a way that somehow lands harder than if he’d just started yelling. “Didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to say yes. Thought I made it more than clear you weren’t wanted around.”
I stop. “Wow. Good morning to you too.”
Sayshen cuts him a sharp look. “Can you maybe not be a complete dick for five fucking minutes?”
Talon wipes his hands on a rag, slow and deliberate, like he’s choosing between ten different bad reactions and settling on the one that makes him look the least bothered. “You’re the one dragging strangers into the garage.”
“She’s not a stranger. She’s our sister.” Sayshen says.
Talon’s jaw tightens. “That doesn’t make this less stupid.”
Sayshen just grins then, all irritating confidence. “Nah, what’s stupid is you acting like after all this time, I don’t know what I’m doing. She’s perfect for the job, bro. You’ll see.”
Talon gives him a dead look. “I’m already exhausted.”
“I’m serious,” Sayshen says, clearly enjoying himself now. “Give it a week and you’ll be eating every word that just came out of your mouth.”
Talon scoffs. “Yeah?”
Andre appears from the back office like he was summoned by hostility.
He’s built like somebody who got tired of arguing with life and started winning by sheer force. Mid-fifties maybe. Solid. Gray threaded through dark hair. Forearms scarred and thick. Face set permanently to which one of you idiots is today’s problem?
His eyes land on me.
Then on Sayshen.
Then back to me again.
“This her?”
Sayshen nods. “Yeah. This is our sister, Echo.”
The second the word leaves his mouth, something metallic slams down hard across the garage.
Talon.
I don’t even have to look to know it’s him.
The sound cracks through the bay like a warning shot, but Sayshen doesn’t so much as blink. Andre’s eyes flick that direction for half a second, clocking the tension, then come back to me.
“Sister?”
Sayshen exhales through his nose. “Long story. Short version? Turns out when our mom left, she was already pregnant and never told anybody. She told Echo the truth about before she died. Echo found us a few weeks ago.”
Andre goes still in that quiet, assessing way people do when they realize they’ve just walked into something bigger than they thought.
His gaze shifts between me and Sayshen, then toward Talon for the briefest second, like the reaction back there told him everything else he needed to know.
Then Sayshen adds, lower now, “And before you ask, no, our dad doesn’t know yet.”
Andre’s eyes come back to him. “He doesn’t?”
Sayshen shakes his head. “Not yet. We’re still figuring out how the hell to even deal with this ourselves.” He glances at me, then back at Andre. “So if you could keep it to yourself for now, I’d appreciate it.”
Andre studies him for a long second, then he nods once. “Not my story to tell.”
Something in my chest loosens at that.
Only a little.
Because the truth is, I don’t know how to feel about our dad not knowing.
Part of me understands it. Of course I do.
Everything about this is a mess already.
Talon is one bad sentence away from blowing a hole through the nearest wall, Sayshen is trying to keep all the pieces from flying off in different directions, and I’m just here, trying to find my place in a world that was taken from me before I even knew it existed.
Tossing our father into the middle of it now would probably turn this from emotionally unstable to full-on catastrophic.
Still… it stings a little that they haven’t told him.
Andre seems to clock enough of the tension to decide he’s not touching it with a ten-foot wrench. Smart man. He jerks his chin toward Bay Three instead.
“Well. Family drama aside, I’m not in the business of handing out jobs because somebody suddenly got a sister. You’ll have to put in the work just like everyone else if you want a spot on this team.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” I mutter.
Andre points at the bike sitting half-open on the stand nearest us.
“That one’s been fighting us for the last two practice days.
Rider says it’s unstable on corner entry and chattery through the front under braking once the session gets hot.
Not every lap and not when cold. Only after it’s been pushed.
” He folds his arms. “If you can tell me what’s wrong with it and fix it, the job’s yours. ”
No pressure.
I look at the bike, then back at him.
“That’s it?”
Andre lifts a brow.
I smile despite myself. “I mean, right. Great. No problem.”
I step toward the bike and circle it once slowly, taking it all in before I touch anything.
It’s a race-prepped machine, fairings partly off, front stand locked, bodywork clean but not pampered.
This isn’t some sponsored beauty queen that only gets polished for photos. This thing gets ridden fucking hard.
I crouch near the front end first, eyes running over the forks, axle, calipers, tire wear. Then I straighten and walk around to the side, checking stance, geometry, chain tension, how it’s sitting on the stand.
Andre doesn’t interrupt, and neither does Sayshen, but behind us, I can feel Talon pretending like he’s not listening, but I ignore him and I keep moving.
“Okay,” I say finally. “If it’s only showing up once the bike’s hot and being pushed, that rules out a bunch of obvious shit straight away.”
Andre says nothing, but I can feel him paying attention now.
I point at the front. “The chatter under braking could make somebody jump straight to fork settings, but if it was just compression damping being off, you’d feel it more consistently. Same with preload. Not just after heat cycles.”
Sayshen’s arms cross. He’s trying not to look smug already.
I shoot him a look without stopping.
“The instability on corner entry plus front-end chatter once it gets worked tells me I’d probably want to start with front geometry and mounting points first, not just suspension clickers. Something’s transferring load wrong once everything warms up and starts moving under pressure.”
Andre’s brow lifts a fraction.